


In anticipation of the apocalypse

by eyemoji



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Poetry, for now, post-159, pre-160, we are in s5 land now!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21563857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyemoji/pseuds/eyemoji
Summary: A Journal In Anticipation of the Apocalypseby Martin K. BlackwoodFor Jon—**Trapped in a one-bedroom in Scotland with the love of his life--Martin decides to start writing down the feelings he can't bring himself to say. They could almost be affecting, if his style wasn't so reminiscent of Keats.(Poetry.)
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 23
Kudos: 75





	1. i've decided to write love poems

**i've decided to write love poems** **  
**   
I've decided to write love poems    
about you, in the hopes   
that it will distract me from   
the curl of your hair, against weakening    
early light; from the snapped cordialities    
you tie into my fingers as you hand me    
another stack, a transaction that ends with me    
giving you another piece of my heart to keep safe.   
You lose it to the worms, but that's okay—   
I saw the effort they put in to burrow it out of you,   
and I heard the ambulance remark upon    
what a wonder it is anyone loved you at all,   
two years old and firmly a disappointment    
for not having missed them less,   
for not having known them more.   
  
I know Peter told you    
About the false, towering castles we've built each other    
in our minds, idols in our image, or    
at least, in the colors we notice to shine out best—   
the red of your passionate debates, the peeling    
orange of your laughter, fading faster each day— 

and it's wrapped up in clove, refreshing; like 

the plums in the refrigerator I've left for you to filch—    
the starburst yellow of your movements, frenetic    
and anxious, and somehow a comfort    
in this world that promises me a life of endless    
stillness.   
  
As for me, all I can see is    
the glittering green of my jealousy, the rough    
blue of my tears, the smoky opal of my favorite    
disappearing trick, Fog    
and clouds and an unvast emptiness.   
I know you do not like this magic.   
I promise not to use it around you.   
That is, I promise not to try.   



	2. Cows.

Some would say it is unflattering,  
to be compared to such a beast--  
and before I go on, let me remind you  
that some compromise   
must always be made, when I   
take it upon myself to describe you--

No one else could take it upon themselves  
to even make the attempt. But I will  
labor away at this page for days,  
if that is what it will take to provide  
you with something of your own,  
the way no one else ever could--  
except for the spiders, though I think  
we can agree, just this once,  
that their webs are not welcome here.

(We have been in agreement, lately--   
is this a sign of a romance, requited?  
A hero and his lover in triumph, in  
desperate breaths before the end, in  
a strange suspended place where no hand   
weaves tapestry but their own?  
Or merely misplaced comfort, a sweet  
respite among the reeds beyond which  
the heady rush of statements gives birth  
to yet another thing you think I cannot understand.

I promise. I understand.)

And here I have demonstrated my point,  
unconsciously as may be--  
When I’m with you, I cannot think  
straight; you’re much too distracting, you  
See. So perhaps, somewhere within  
the veil of grace enveloping your limbs,  
making you a dancer against the night,  
you can find it within yourself to forgive me--  
I only meant to say:  
That your eyes, wide and star-soaked,  
glitter against the night  
even when you are sleeping, and  
That if you were to wake in cloud’s embrace  
searching for me, screaming  
I would run my hand up into your curls  
until quiet wrapped its blanket once again, and  
That if another fence were to come between us,  
I would mount its height in a second,  
lean against your side,  
and walk with you to greener pastures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "he draws inspiration from Keats," I say to myself as I continue to borrow from William Carlos Williams to write my intentionally mediocre poetry.


	3. in hopes that you will kindly join me in bed

When I woke this morning, made my way  
into the kitchen, passing by the couch  
on which you insist on sleeping,  
even though the bed--   
and my heart--   
are big enough for us both  
(and if one were to be shut out, let it be me,)  
I noticed a line pressed into your face--  
a crease that caressed your forehead  
the way I have long imagined doing,  
tracing out a curve that buckles where  
it ought to smooth, tightens where  
your soul ought to loosen,  
in order to commune with that spirit  
we like to call sleep.

I suppose what with your numerous close calls  
that ‘sleep’ is too close to ‘death,’  
and that Somnus borrows Janus’s double faces  
when he calls to you from just beyond the edge   
of your vision, a place where only villains creep,  
and where I hope to patrol,  
if only to banish your historical horrors,  
if only to see you unblemished by the burden  
of the knowledge of your particular terror,  
delivered fresh each night by a deliveryman  
who demands you pay him in kind  
for all that you feed him--  
an unsustainable business model, perhaps,  
but I suppose in the face of fear  
we are all expendable,  
and thus, we are the same.

Maybe now it is easier for you  
to see why it is so vital for me   
to know that you understand-- Again--  
You could be lost in the library of Alexandria  
itself, and I would still be able to pick you  
out from the crowd; Jon, I hope you will  
listen; that you will listen,  
and that you will hear me when I say--

My heart-- and the bed-- is big enough for two.


	4. though i will not weave,

I know you worry.  
About the way we will never truly be alone,  
About the reason why that is;  
About the way you kind of like the sharp stab of victory  
that comes with knowing you'll never let me  
drift again.

I worry.  
Not about those things, mostly,  
but about the way I can spin webs, lie-ridden, with  
the tip of my tongue like candyfloss  
gently set adrift,  
melting sugar into water,  
inseparable,  
untraceable,  
and how that might make you feel, if you knew.  
It makes me feel scared,  
but I think that's the point.

Fear is not a delicate thing,  
unless I want it to be.


	5. Behold my beloved

Behold my beloved,  
as he sits upon the stoop.  
Eyes shadowed, face drawn   
into that tight expression   
he only wears when I’m not looking.  
His shoulders sag into his chest,   
making his missing ribs only more prominent.  
Scars dot along his clavicle and spread out  
across his chest and neck and face,  
pockmarks of filth   
in an otherwise flushed system.

Behold my beloved,  
as he scrunches in on himself,  
those curmudgeonly creases  
which scatter across his forehead like crevasses  
deepening as he looks off  
into an invisible gloom.  
Behold, as he does,  
the despair that comes with  
the knowledge of all things ending,  
that is written with such violence  
across his countenance;  
Thus, he is aged beyond his years.

Behold my beloved.  
He is wearing my jacket,   
and the sleeves drift down far beyond his wrists,  
engulfing his fingers in fabric too coarse  
for what I wish I could give him.  
He is beautiful,  
not because your heart might stir  
as you stood watching him,  
hands dusted in flour from the baking,  
but because mine does,  
and it-- and I-- do not care  
for such things as clear skin,  
as clean hands,  
as an unweary heart,  
if only my lover can, every now and then,  
glance over at me from his position  
on the staircase,  
and, despite the ever-pressing nature  
of our apocalyptic universe,  
smile.


	6. Couplets

I think, my darling, that in this time,

some solutions can be found in rhyme.

I’d like to dance across the kitchen floor

with you in my arms, ever so adored.

~~ If this book you were to find, ~~

~~ A Leitner I might have to bind. ~~

There is something in me that sings, that crows--

Some part of you fills me with prose.

For you: a carnation,

with which I present my admiration.

(For you, roses I would have got--

It’s just I’ve rhymed with “prose” a lot.)


	7. If you're reading this, we're out of milk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ft. some very messy mixed metaphors

There is no milk in the fridge,  
and perhaps, in another life, this would have been a   
Problem, but somehow I can’t bring myself   
to care, not when I am constantly looking over my shoulder  
in case the shadows that have yet to lay down and   
become ghosts (wouldn’t that be kind of them?)  
have decided today is the perfect moment to knock  
upon our fourth-story window (they do not know  
how to use the front door, these flesh-and-blood spirits,)  
and so, in the grand scheme of it all,   
some spoiled milk is hardly  
the most pressing issue.

Did I say spoiled? I meant the milk is gone,  
not that it is curdled, and  
I didn’t mean to imply that the latter equals the former;  
there are some very nice cheese recipes  
that call for expired milk, you  
know. 

(Please do not take that as me saying  
you ought to expire, because  
I don’t want to have that particular argument today,  
thank you very much. I am trying to be romantic.  
I am also trying to make better use of metaphor.)

On that note, thank you  
for replenishing me after the world drank me down  
and told me how refreshing I was as it did.  
I have often been called ‘stocky,’ but I have never fully  
been in stock, until you. You are a milkman, a great Archivist,  
for how thoroughly you know me, how lovingly and tenderly  
you handle the glass of my bottle. You place back the fat  
that has been skimmed from me, make me whole. It is a privilege  
to be in your catalog.

And, alright, there are some moments in the dead  
of the night, when the nightmares come to life,  
when I wish you would just let yourself   
read me like a book that’s fallen off the shelf  
instead of painstakingly calculating my dewey decimal.  
This is the time to cry over spilled milk,   
and at least then I would be able to express  
how much I loved the paneer you made  
our first night in our new-old temporary home,  
and I would be able to reveal  
that I have been secretly teaching myself the recipe,  
in the hopes of surprising you some fine afternoon,  
with the hope that maybe you might see  
it is your fortification that gave me the strength for it,  
that it was your curdled nature that strengthened the recipe.

You have seen yourself as milk gone wrong for so long,  
a lactose-intolerant’s worst nightmare;  
you have not even considered that you might be cheese.

I think perhaps I need to cut down on the cow and dairy metaphors.  
Do you think you could pop down for some milk?  
I like you more than brie.


	8. Over-thought

When I look at you it’s too easy to get lost  
in the jumbling haze I like to call love--

(I _think_ that’s what this is. I know you’d insist  
on getting a second opinion,  
if this was one of your cases  
I’d been assigned to investigate.)

Unfortunately for us, I am too apt  
to get my questions answered with lying  
promises, promised lies. I am the flood  
of worms and you are the carpet,  
and I know, already, the flavor of peaches  
I will find along your tongue.

This is why I am too scared to taste.

Your sarcasm is much more palatable,  
in the sense that if I cut my teeth on it  
then I will suffer the sordid sensitivity that ensues  
And avoid the tang of blood entirely.

Really, it’s quite offensive  
the way you are all soft glances and secret smiles  
these days-- how am I to bury myself in the numbness  
when you won’t allow me the novocaine?  
The intoxication of your laugh may be the old-fashioned  
Method, but I just might be a bit too afraid to try  
and bring it out in you,  
though the color of happiness suits you;  
you wear joy well;  
I would like to knit it up for you to keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> workin on updating all my big fics, but in the meantime here is something short ~~i~~ martin literally wrote in 5 minutes k thx


	9. an experiment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we've moved into season 5 territory babey!
> 
> ao3 is blocking my formatting, so it's uploaded as an image. alt text is provided, and contains the text of the poem, but lacks the formatting.


	10. Some lessons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is still canon-compliant because technically it's a contingency and the implied scenario hasn't necessarily come to pass. i think martin would write this 'overnight' at basira's camp, and partially in his head on the journey there from the center of the woods.

1.  
Understand that understanding is not a crime,  
not on its own. It couldn’t be— is too complex.  
No Eye alone can draw out the meaning,  
between the measured words;  
you can Know all you want, and still Reason.   
Logic would fail you for nuance;

It is enough that you are trying.  
You are enough for trying.  
You are enough.

2.  
I am very good at lying. 

3.  
But I don’t like lying to you.

4.  
When I tell you I trust you, then trust  
I, in turn, am not telling falsehoods,  
even with the blade against my throat  
I have full confidence in you.

5.  
It scares me, sometimes—  
How far I would follow you.

6.  
This was meant to be a poem about limits;  
I’m starting to be afraid that mine are infinite,  
at least when it comes to you.

7.  
Fold that up and keep it in your heart, because  
this is not a snack. These are emergency rations.

8.  
Hi, Jon.  
I don’t think I wanted you to read this one.  
But if you’ve gotten this far,  
please read it back. I’ve left you—  
some lessons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay now read it backwards.
> 
> (i couldn't stop thinking about forwards-backwards poems after reading [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20529530))


End file.
